Buddy Goes On Camp

I woke up on the couch at 2am, Luke was reading, The Rosie Batty saga, the others weren’t in view. My tshirt was wet from my sweating as I slept. If I get all scrunched up when I sleep, I sweat a lot. I’m a bit of a sweater at the best of times. I sat up and felt the vile touch of wet fabric on bare skin. Shiver creeper, shiver cold. Like the wet side of skin from another creature wrapped around me. It grabbed at my skin, as I reached for the mulli and the mull bowl. Luke and I smoked it in silence. I shuffled off to bed. That time in the wee small ams when I feel like Quasimodo dragging my sorry arse up those stairs. The bedroom airconditioner was whirring, surprisingly quietly, and the room was sealed shut. Lovely. I like to sleep with the same doona all year round, is that indulgent? If I was an eccentric Billionaire, I’d sleep in a chilled marble vault.

I’d have a house in the country, sadly I think it would have to be the tropics, that was built in accordance with air flow and natural heating and cooling. You have to harness the cool, night air to survive the harsh, hot days. If I was a billionaire, I could do it anywhere, I guess. There is nothing like sleeping in the natural warmth of the day, though, or showering with an open air bathroom, which is sublime in the topical parts of Australia.

Are we going to have to provide a granny flat for poor mad aunt Annie, I fear so. You know, if I was a billionaire. I’d need to be a billionaire, with a compound. Anthony is hopeless, not dangerous.

Mark has totally shunned Anthony. “I’m sick of making excuses for the addicts in my life,” Mark said.

There has to be something said for it. If Anthony wants to drink himself to death in Mitcham, who are we to get in the way?

Money… addiction… anxiety… greed… failure (deliberate failure on all levels) is the sickness today.


I woke up at 5am to the aircondioner buzzing away next to me in a 21st century computerised way. I looked over Sam’s head to the bedside clock, to see what time it was? He got to his feet and drank a glass of water. He walked over to the aircondioner and it stopped with a kerthud. He opened the balcony door and a wildly cold breeze blew in and the patter of heavy rain could be heard on the road beyond. The breeze was new and full of joy. The feeling of the room turned inside out.

I made coffee and rolled a joint.

The rain fell continuously for hours, heavy, substantial rain. It was cold sitting in the lounge room with the windows and the doors open, airing it from the heat of the days now passed. We had to close them. Funny old weather. I wonder if any one else has noticed a change? Or is it just me?

I made coffee and smoked a second joint.

I have to take Buddy to Cheltenham today, and I have to drive to Torquay on Sunday, but other than that, I don’t have to do anything until 11th January. I’m on holidays.

Sam is still chastising me for taking the 4th Jan to the 11th Jan off, unsupervised, if you like. “Go back on the 4th,” he said. “You don’t need any more time off after that.”

“A week to myself, to do nothing, you know that is my favourite kind of week to take off,” I said. “What could I say, F kept offering it to me right up until the last day. She said, “You decided, I’m happy either way.”

“I’ll see you on the 11th,” I said.

The assertion from Sam is that I will do nothing, if I am left unsupervised. Don’t you sometimes just need your own company for a week, or thereabouts, just to completely recharge and top up completely? Don’t you?


Mark and Sister Chrisy spoke for hours about Fen. Apparently, psycho boy’s written efforts are ramping up, with several members of the family receiving their annual Fen missive. Mark called Sister Chrisy to see if she had received one, which indeed she had. All lovely, kittens and puppies, charming Fen, just reaching out to his loved ones. The last time he tried this, with Lissa (cousin) and Rob (uncle), it rapidly descended into mindless ranting and physical threats and he is now blocked from their lives.

Shrug.

The sun shone outside. The sky was blue.

Apparently, psycho boy and psycho mumma (mother Marie) have had another falling out and psycho mumma has been banned from seeing sproglet April for 3 years… psycho boy has banned his terminally ill mother from seeing his kid for an extended period of time? She says we all have to be on psycho boy’s side. The madness never ends. They deserve each other.

I don’t really care, as long as Fen is never bought back into my life, I feel like X Street is neutral ground. Otherwise, I really don’t care what he does, but it is quite interesting, none the less. Like it, or not, and I like it not, he is a part of my story and his character’s storyline deserves an update. Nothing more. Some of the regular bit players get to speak from time to time.

I am not invested. I expect no more contact forever.

Mark and Luke went to Jeff and Raymond’s for a late lunch. (Sam and I no longer get invited. Not fun enough, Sam asks? Was it something I said, I ask?) I told them to be back by 6pm so that we could take Buddy down to Rachel’s.

“I’ll be down after 6pm.”

“No problem,” said Rachel. “There will be a few people here eating Xmas leftovers for dinner.

Mark said 7pm to everyone of my 6pm’s, but I was sure he got the message in the end. They got home right on 7pm. Apparently, they are now going to stay a night at Jeff and Raymond’s and won’t becoming down to the beach house until Monday night.

Change you minds if you like… but again?

We left for Rachel’s.

Stopping on the white line as the next car to cross Bridge Road in the heavy traffic on Punt Road – if you can’t leave an intersection, people, you shouldn’t enter it. They are the road rules, learn them – Sam said, “Look there is one of those flashing light things.”

My eyesight stretched down Punt Road to red and blue flashing police lights seemingly at the beginning of this traffic jam that was in front of us. Oh? What? Is the light still green? It looked more like an accident, or did it? Fortunately, we were in the left lane, despite that intersection having a dedicated left turn lane, which I had just edged passed, I put my left blinker on and turned left into Bridge Road. Exit, stage left. Did I just dodge a breathalyser? Am I now a fugitive? Forward to Lennox Street, I hadn’t smoked pot for the last few hours, all afternoon, it was now 7pm, but I’d been choofing away quite heavily before that, in the morning, you do the maths. Forward to Swan Street, will a police car see me turn left and follow me? Are there flashing red and blue lights behind me? Turn right into Swan Street, which seems like party central with clear revellers lining the streets and filling the cafes. Momentarily, we are in Times Square. Jazz played. Safety in numbers, disappear into the crowd. People laughed. Lights flashed. Base speakers thumped. If Melbourne had a Gotham City section, this would be it. Turn left into Cremorne Street, just under the expansive bridge. The noise disappears. The street stretches out in front of us, a straight line into the dark. I push the Peugeot along, its exhaust barks out into the night air, as we gather speed, between the warehouse buildings, down the narrow street, seemingly, to the end of it, just when it threatens to veer away from the parallel to Punt Road, we take a side street right back onto Punt Road. Forward, over the river and up the Punt Road Hill. I can see the red and blue lights flashing in my rear vision mirror nearly all the way over the hill to Toorak Road.

Marg and David were there (Rachel’s parents). Craig (brother), Emily (daughter), and her very sexy fireman boyfriend Alex, Alexi, and her husband, Matt (neighbours). Oreya (daughter), Oliver (son), a visiting English couple, who were all full of the Xmas cheer. It is nice, it is really what Xmas is about. Such gatherings for my family are a thing of the past, I thought.

Buddy took it as a gathering of his fan club and greeted everyone accordingly. His natural bulldog swagger kicking in as he proceeded around his guests. He will be allowed to sit on the couch in this house. They all said how lovely he is.

Kaia (their gorgeous shaggy dog) was fine with him, but the cat (feline infuriated) was another story. NOT HAPPY! WHAT THE FUCK! Ears back. Hiss! Spit! She had to be removed. Let’s hope that Buddy has the good sense to keep away from that.
Kaia has grown up since last time I saw her, playing right into Buddies big dog fetish. Let's hope he doesn't get amorous with her. That would be a bad look. A fail to be invited back.

Marg was very chatty. She hasn’t changed one little bit over the years and is just a nice as ever. She said, “Gosh Christian, I wouldn’t have recognised you.” We haven’t seen each other for 20 years, but we did drive all over London together, Marg and I laughed at the memory.

“I know, I’ve got fat and grey.” Unlike you. She hasn’t changed in forty years. Not much. She must be in her seventies, late seventies, I reckon.

We ate another Xmas dinner. All the trappings. We were in the house of good cooks. I drank coke.

It poured with rain. I got wet standing in the back yard having a fag.

“What are you doing?” exclaimed Rachel when she saw a cigarette in my mouth.

We all laughed.

“Can Buddy have table scraps?” asked Rachel. I looked over to see his lordship up on his back legs, front paws on the bench, tonguing up into the air to get the table scraps in question with all the bulldog enthusiasm he could muster.

I wanted to answer, he has never had table scraps, but I simply said "Sure," instead.

“Once mum’s gone, he can sleep on my bed,” said Rachel.

“Remember, he snores.”


Rachel was a bit glassy-eyed by the time we left.

“They were feeding Buddy sausages,” said Sam in the car, aghast that I had some how allowed this to happen.

“He’s on camp,” I said.


The roads home at 11pm were clear of cars and, more importantly, clear of potential policemen with small machines in their hands. “I haven’t had one drop of alcohol, officer.”

“Could I test your saliva?”

“Can you test an alternative?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow?”

“A liquid, possibly,” I said. I sat back in the seat.

“I have a wife and kids.”

Duh!

Shake of the head.

Actually, I wouldn’t care. I don’t need my car for anything, and if I lost my licence I wouldn’t really care. I could easily not drive for the duration of the punishment. And they just give it back to you at the end. The trouble is that there is zero tolerance for it in your system, accordingly the punishments are punitive. I smoked in the morning, but I didn’t smoke any pot for the afternoon, the 7 hours preceding getting behind the wheel. I was fine to drive. If you want to take me to task over it, I would argue that 7 hours later the stoned effect had finished and warn off, if anything, I would be simply more relaxed and therefore better focused on driving than, possibly, at other times.

If I hadn’t drunk alcohol for 7 hours before driving, people would be applauding me.

I don’t care what people think, it is ridiculous, we should have a .05 tolerance like we do with alcohol.


I fell asleep repeatedly on the couch, Sam woke me repeatedly and told me to go to bed.

Luke read Rosie Batty’s story.

I was in bed by 12.30am.